Court Stenographer at Rio Tinto Verdict

The notes offer a sense of the court procedure, rather than a complete transcript. Several Chinese companies were named as charges were read out, but the names aren’t confirmed. Efforts to contact the companies, some of which are well known and others that aren’t, have been made but no company has yet responded to the accusations.

James T. Areddy

Reporters file into court in Shanghai

Around 1:30 p.m., a half-hour before the proceedings were set to begin, around 30 print reporters were permitted inside the court to witness the proceedings live, via closed-circuit television. The TV sets were located in a courtroom in a new building annex. The trial was taking place on the second floor in an identical-looking courtroom, No. 1.

Reporters were required to turn off all mobile phones and weren’t permitted to use cameras or electronic recording equipment. A photographer and a television camera could be seen inside the court as the proceedings got under way.

Around 10 uniformed policemen stood and sat at all four corners of the area where the reporters were seated.

“Bring in the defendants,” Liu Xin, chief of the three judge panel at Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court, said to start proceedings promptly at 2 p.m.

He was seated in a black chair underneath the Communist Party logo, and flanked by two other judges. A police officer stood in front of the bench.

The defendants stood shoulder to shoulder, Stern Hu, distinctive due to his grey hair, was standing at the far left in a black jacket. The other defendants also wore street clothes: a brown jacket, a red shirt and jacket and a grey suit over a dark suit. They weren’t identified by name.

But when the allegations were read out, they went in this order: Stern Hu, who in Chinese court is known by his Chinese name Hu Shitai; Wang Yong, Ge Minqiang and Liu Caikui.

“We accepted this case prosecuted by the First Branch of Shanghai Municipal Procuratorate. The court checked the facts, the evidence and held the trial……now it’s time for the verdicts. Since the verdicts are long, defendants can sit down,” said Judge Liu.

Wang Yong, a sales director of Luobohe Iron Mining Co., a subsidiary of Rio Tinto, in total took bribes worth 75.1443 million yuan.
1. 2003-2004, Wang took 3 million yuan bribe from Tianjin Rongcheng Co.
2. Wang took a $9 million bribe from Du Shuanghua of Rizhao Steel Co.
3. Wang took a 3 million yuan bribe to buy a house in Shanghai (West Yan’an Rd.) from Du Shuanghua of Rizhao Steel Co..
4. Wang took a $385,300 bribe from Wang Dongsheng, also of Rizhao.

Liu Caikui, sales director of Shanghai Representative Office of Rio Tinto Singapore Co., in total took 3.7862 million yuan.
1. took bribes from Anyang Iron & Steel Co.
2. took 300,000 yuan from Shanxi-based Jianbang Co.
3. took $150,000 from a Hong Kong-based company
4. took $40,000 from a Shanghai-based company
5. took 136,500 yuan from Hong Kong Laibao Co.
6. took 900,000 yuan from Jingcheng Steel Co.
7. took 270,000 yuan from a Shandong-based company

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The judge then detailed key events of the allegations of theft of commercial secrets charges.

The information obtained, the allegations show, was reported and emailed to Rio Tinto’s headquarters.

A conclusion: “They used illegal means to obtain commercial secrets that put the Chinese steel industry in a powerless position,” Judge Liu said. Their action, he added, “has a direct cause-and-effect relationship” on the industry’s weakened position in negotiating iron ore prices.

The judge cited a figure on losses for the steel industry of 1.018 billion yuan. (The figure wasn’t further explained.)

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The judge offered characterizations:

1. Wang Yong argued his $9 million dollars amounted to “borrowing the money,” not bribes, but the court disagreed. The money was not a loan.

2. Wang Yong argued that his 3 million yuan from Rizhao Steel to buy a house was a loan. The court determined Wang had adequate cash and did not need to borrow money. No IOU was written, Wang didn’t return the money and there was no indication of when it might be returned. So the court determined it was a bribe.

3. Defendants argued that CISA meetings in the Chinese cities of Wuxi and Nanjing, plus Shougang’s planned output cut weren’t commercial secrets, The court determined the information was related to China’s iron ore price negotiating position and couldn’t have been obtained publicly.

4. Regarding the defendants’ questioning the determination of huge losses (1.018 billion yuan), the court determined the figure was an official assessment.

5. Regarding Liu Caikui’s initiative to confess his crimes when he was arrested, the court found the procuratorate had already known his situation. So Liu was not voluntarily turning himself in.

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Finally the judge said, Hu refunded the full amount of his bribes, while Wang and Ge refunded parts of their bribes. The court considered these facts to announce the verdict.

With the defendants again standing, Judge Liu read the court verdicts rapidly. Only one man showed any emotion, bowing his head slightly forward when the verdicts were read. The proceeding was concluded in about 35 minutes.

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